OKEMAH — Arlo Guthrie drove into town by himself in apickup truck. Before he appeared on stage Wednesday nighthere at the Crystal Theater, Woody Guthrie's youngersister, Mary Jo Edgmon, insisted the audience sing "HappyBirthday" to him, his 54th birthday having been Tuesday.Like a good relative, he grinned and bore it, waving to thecrowd.

The first two rows at Wednesday night's tribute concertwere full of Guthrie relatives. Don Conoscenti and EllisPaul shared the stage that night, and Conoscenti ribbedPaul about his new haircut; they've spent the week taggingaround town together as if they were actually brothers. Asfans arrive in the campground and at the various Okemahvenues, there are numerous jubilant reunions of oldfriends, many of whom see each other once a year -- at thisfestival.

Larry Long, who is scheduled to perform on the mainstage Saturday night, said in a conversation earlier thisweek that this family feeling is exactly why this festivalhas remained successful in these early years. Long, an Iowanative, struggled with a Woody Guthrie tribute concert in1989 here in Okemah, when the town was still somewhatdivided over honoring its hometown hero (a dispute thatarose because of the communist company Guthrie sometimeskept in the 40s).

"This festival has a great capacity to do good work andhonor the place that Okemah is," Long said. "When we weretrying it, that's what we wanted to achieve: to make this acelebration of the traditions that nurtured Woody, hissense of love of community and place and the familytraditions that make places like Okemah so delightful."A sense of community and a laid-back spirit made Wednesdaynight's tribute concert all the more enjoyable. For thefirst time in the festival's four years, though, theWednesday night show had a handful of empty seats, largelybecause previous kick-off shows have featured big-nametalent. This year the Wednesday fund-raiser was the annualtribute concert modeled after the bi-coastal tributesfollowing Guthrie's death in 1967. Nearly two dozenperformers cycled through the show, performing Guthriesongs between readings of Guthrie's prose.

But the lack of mega-commercial giants on the historicCrystal stage hardly dampened the energy or worth of theticket. Instead, performers and audience were able to lettheir hair down and experience the occasional magic thatoccurs when everyone laughs and thinks, "Well, we're allfamily here."

Of course, when a reviewer begins carping about thelaid-back spirit of a performance, that usually means thesound system was bad and the performers forgot some wordsand there were some production mistakes. Some and maybe allof these things were true Wednesday night. The crucialdifference is that nothing seriously derailed the show -- orthe moments of magic -- and if there's somebody out therecomplaining I'd be real surprised.

The first magic moment came early, on the fourth song.Conoscenti and Paul together sang Guthrie's eerie portraitof a Vigilante Man, accompanied only by Conoscenti'sKokopeli-painted banjo. He played the song with a ghostlytension and foreboding, and Paul's piercing harmony gave itan unearthly feel. The song marched like a posse throughthe darkness, evoking Stephen Stills live performances of"Black Queen." They kept their eyes locked on each other fromstart to finish -- who knows if they'd ever performed thistogether before? -- and the audience barely breathed.

The second breath-taker was nicely balanced, the fourthsong from the end. Mary Reynolds, a native of OklahomaCity, played and sang "Hobo's Lullaby." It's not as importantto say that she played the song as it is to say she sangit. Reynold's voice is a clarion call, a beautiful andcontrolled birdsong, and with the help of two friendsbacking her with harmonies, the performance was as if threeangels were hovering over a lonely hobo in a dank boxcar,their voices alone filling him with hope.

Those were the jaw-droppers. Other great momentsincluded Slaid Cleaves' chilling reading of "1913 Massacre,"a festival repeat that never gets old; a fiery (but notbrimstony) run through "Jesus Christ" by the versatile andspunky trio Still on the Hill; and the playful -- and onlybarely cheesey -- dialogue between the Farm Couple on"Philadelphia Lawyer."

After the all-star finales -- with every performer fromthe night crammed on the stage for "Hard Travelin'"(jumpstarted by Paul, who belts it out with gusto),"Oklahoma Hills" and "This Land Is Your Land" -- half theaudience hung around chatting and meeting the musicians.The theater sweepers eventually had to shove people out thedoor. There was no boundary between star and fan, norushing off to an ivory tour bus. This is folk music, afterall, and the folks gathered here this weekend are one bigfamily.

It's Thursday evening at the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival-- on an outdoor stage, in July, in Oklahoma, for Pete's sake-- the sun's still high enough in the sky to make misery, andnobody is fool enough to be out in the heat.

Well, some folks were. A dedicated stage crew and about30 fans when the first band started.

"What in tarnation are we doing out here?" asked a fan tono one in particular.

By the time Xavier finished its opening set, though, thecrowd was coming on, hauling lawn chairs and fans into thefield where the Pastures of Plenty main stage looms. By thetime the Red Dirt Rangers brought down the rafters, theaudience was several hundred strong.

Xavier is the band featuring Abe Guthrie -- son of ArloGuthrie and thus grandson of the festival's honorednamesake. They've come a long way, baby. What was once aclunky and often ill-advised heavy metal band has maturedover the last decade into a tight and buoyantSouthern-sounding rock band.

The quartet opened the main stage festival by singing ana cappella version of the Beatles' "Nowhere Man," no doubt aringer in their repertoire but an ironic opening to thefestival; the song describes an anonymous slacker whocouldn't be more the reverse of Woody Guthrie's do-or-diegumption. The rest of the band's set chugged aheadunfettered, maintaining the same sharp harmonies throughrootsy rock that see-sawed between Alabama's rockin' sideand Little Feat's country side.

But the heat was getting to them, too.

"We're from Massachusetts, so this hundred degrees is abit different for us," guitarist Randy Cormier said from thestage. "We just shoveled out our last bit of snow up there."

As the sun dipped behind the Okemah hill, the Thursdaynight main stage bill continued to shine. Grammy-winnerPierce Pettis slipped by, and Lucy Kaplansky (who'sperformed with everyone, from Shawn Colvin and Dar Williamsto John Gorka and Bill Morrissey) played a beautiful,subdued set, which included a surprising cover of RoxyMusic's "More Than This."

Slaid Cleaves moseyed his way through a batch of songsthat further proves he is one of the most talented singersout of Austin, Texas (if not the reincarnation of CiscoHouston himself). He led off with his current hit, "BrokeDown," before singing a character sketch of a very colorfulcharacter. The song included a couple of yodels, which bothgenerated their own applause. When fellow Austin musicianDarcie Deaville joined him onstage, she ribbed him aboutthe yodeling. "I got that from Don Walser," Cleaves said, andthe two of them then played a Walser tune. Cleaves lateradded his own, festival-centric verses to Guthrie's "I AintGot No Home" and then closed with a haunting, pre-"MermaidAvenue" collaboration with Guthrie: Cleaves' tune to a 1940Guthrie lyric, "This Morning I Was Born Again."

The Red Dirt Rangers closed the show with their usualbackbeat, once again being the first festival act to getaudience members on their feet dancing. They opened with"Rangers Command," a groove-greased Guthrie original and thetitle track from their latest album. Later, they played atune by the late Benny Craig, a former Ranger and amuch-missed and talented multi-instrumentalist. The tune,called "Leave This World a Better Place," was unusually funkyfor Craig -- or was that the Rangers? -- but its lyricalsentiments were perfect for a festival honoring a scrappysongwriter who tried his utmost to leave the world justso.

OKEMAH — The Woody Guthrie Folk Festival has grownsubstantially in its four years, so much so that theexperience involves much more than the evening headlinersin the pasture. Music and other activities continuethroughout the day, especially on the weekend. Here's around-up of some of the magic moments from around WoodyGuthries hometown this weekend:

It's not in the brochure

This festival offers an awful lot of music for thehungry folk fan, but there's even more available than fansfind printed in the official schedule. Sometimes the bestshows of the week occur at about 4 in the morning in theparking lot of the OK Motor Lodge. That's the only motel intown, and during the festival it's full of musicians andconcert organizers. Musicians often live by the slogan,"I'll sleep when I'm dead," so when they get home after thenight's gigs, many of them pull lawn chairs into a cornerof the parking lot and swap songs until dawn.

Friday night (er, Saturday morning), for instance, foundJimmy LaFave, Bill Erickson, Bob Childers, Terry Ware,Emily Kaitz, members of Xavier and scattered Red DirtRangers camped out with several fans and budding musicianssoftly strumming tunes in the cool July night. Kaitz hadher stand-up bass on the blacktop and lightened the moodearly on with a song about bass players taking over theworld and righting its fret-ful wrongs.

Erickson tried unsuccessfully to lead a sing-along ("Iguess they're too tired," he later muttered; of course, heactually said tarred), and LaFave coursed the group through"You Ain't Going Nowhere." Dawn usually found a handful ofthese desperados still fumbling through "Sweet HomeAlabama."

Coffee, black as night

Those all-night parking-lot sessions take their toll,though, when you're scheduled to perform the next morning.Of course, 12:40 p.m. isn't morning to most of us, but it'sthe crack of dawn to most guitar-slingers. Bob Childersneeded a lot of coffee Friday morning.

His early afternoon set at the Brick Street Cafi mayhave been slow going at first, but Green Country nativeChilders is armed with a wily charm that squeezed throughhis own squinting eyes. Thanks to a Brick Street waitresswho kept his coffee mug topped off on stage ("I'm loving youright now," Childers said as she poured him coffee at themicrophone, "I'm gonna write a song about you"), theearly-bird crowd learned or was reminded of Childer's talltalents as a songwriter. He muddled his way throughoriginal classics such as "Sweet Okie Girl," "Restless Spirit"and his appropriate finale, the eloquent "Woody's Road." Justwhen he thought he was off to bed, the crowd hooted for anencore, a rarity on the afternoon indoor stages.

Can I see some I.D.?

At this or any other music festival, the surest way tofind great performers is to follow the performers. See theshows the musicians see, and your eyes and ears will rarelybe sore. Case in point: the crowd for Dustin Pittsley waspractically half the festival roster.

Pittsley is another hot blues phenom, a teenager freshout of Chandler High School. He recently placed third inthe "Jam With Kenny Wayne Shepherd" contest, and his looksand licks are dead ringers for that blues guitar upperclassman. He wailed on an acoustic guitar Saturdayafternoon inside the Brick Street Cafi while pal SmileyDryden huffed on harmonica and main-stage star Kevin Bowesat in on a few of Pittsley's groove-jammed originals. Aname to know.

A harp with no strings

"We got accused once of being a bluegrass band," saidDoublNotSpyz singer John Williams midway through the band'sFriday set at the Brick Street Cafi. "We had all theinstruments. It was an easy mistake."

He then launches into a song with a Jew's harp solo.Easy mistake, indeed.

The DoublNotSpyz (ask a "Beverly Hillbillies" fan toexplain the name) are more than mere bluegrass, though, andWilliams is often the proof. He was tapped as a favoriteharmonica player throughout the festival, especially duringWednesday night's tribute concert and that's the instrumentthrough which he rocks the hardest.

He's more interesting to listen to than big-shots likeBlues Traveler's John Popper because Williams wailing isn'tjust self-aggrandizing improvisation; Williams sticks bythe melody being steered by singer and co-songwriter LarrySpears and keeps his audience in the song, not thespotlight. His harp-heaving alone received a standingovation Friday.

Coming into his own

Austin-based singer-songwriter Michael Fracasso startedhis set Saturday afternoon in the Crystal Theater with hispoignant, droning reflection on the 1950s, and he endedwith a song called "1962." The timespan framed him well: hisnaked, honest songs are deeply rooted in that era of folkmusic's second great revival, the same era that inspired ayoung Dylan.

In white T-shirt and cuffed blue jeans, Fracasso'srugged Rust Belt looks belied his sensitive nature. It'sthat sensitivity that produces such beautifully craftedoriginal songs ("Wise Blood," inspired by the novel "The LastTemptation of Christ," was enormously uplifting) and is ableto tap into vast new realms of emotion buried deep withinold songs.

His reading of Guthrie's "1913 Massacre," for instance, isa masterpiece of vocal and acoustic dynamics. I've heardthat song and even his rendition of it dozens of times, butI must confess: Saturday's performance of it flooded myeyelids more than a bit. That's how folk songs stay alivein the hearts of the people.

Everything's new, again

This happens every year, and Friday afternoon was nodifferent. A young guy or his girlfriend stumble wide-eyeddown Okemah's bustling Main Street. They're brand new tothe festival, no doubt, and they stop a stranger to askabout the goings-on. Then one of them asks, from a well ofperfect innocence, "So when does Woody Guthrie perform?"

OKEMAH — Near the end of his Saturday night setheadlining the Pastures of Plenty main stage, Arlo Guthrie,son of the namesake of this weeks Woody Guthrie FolkFestival, started a sweet old tune by one of his dad'sfriends, Leadbelly.

"There've been enough people playing songs by my dad. I'dlike to play a song by one of his friends. That's kind ofwhat this festival is about a festival of friends," Guthriesaid.

Indeed, the four-day festival this year glowed with thejubilation of reunited friends and renewed family ties, inthe audience and backstage. Some company used to offer along-distance calling plan called "Friends and Family," andthis fourth Woody Guthrie Folk Festival could have flownthat same banner.

The unseasonably cool and clear weather, which camethrough late Thursday night -- just before the festivalschedule reached its full intensity outdoors -- aided bothattitude and attendance. Friday and Saturday shows at theoutdoor stage were crowded, despite organizers nervousnessabout not having a big name on the festival bill thisyear.

All that big-name talk is more than a little insultingto Arlo, though, who is hardly a slouch. For a festivalhonoring his late folksinging father, he's plenty bigenough and clearly draws and holds a large crowd.

Austin songwriter Jimmy LaFave mentioned during hisFriday night set that he wishes the festival were calledthe Woody and Arlo Guthrie Folk Festival. Arlo hasperformed at each Guthrie festival thus far and hasremained dedicated to the gathering, which brings togethera good chunk of his relatives, too. After his performanceat Wednesday night's tribute concert, he hardly had time totalk to fans and media; there were too many relatives togreet. For Arlo, this is a family affair, in everyrespect.

In fact, backing him up Saturday night was Xavier, theband featuring Arlos son, Abe. (Sara Lee, Arlos daughterwho thrilled audiences at last years festival, could notattend this year because she's finishing an album.) Xavierhad opened the outdoor stage on Thursday night with apowerful blend of homey harmonies and taut rock, whichbeefed up Arlos songs considerably.

We've heard Arlo strumming and wheezing through hissongs so many years now that we forget how tightly theyusually are written and how easily they can rock if givento the right band. The Xavier boys gave Arlo some muscleand breadth through "Coming to Los Angeles," "Chilling of theEvening" (which opened the show as a tribute to the weather,perhaps?), and a springy version of the blues classic "St.James Infirmary."

Preceding Arlo was the Joel Rafael Band, another familyaffair. Playing violin for her dad was Jamaica Rafael, whoalso sang a creeping and eventually moving version ofWoody's "Pastures of Plenty."

Joel sang a few Guthrie songs with his inimitablepatience and grace, as well as his talking tune about hisfirst visit to Okemah and this festival a few years ago.The song describes his surprise upon being unable to find aparking space outside of Lou's Rocky Road Tavern in Okemahthat first night. As a result of the song and the familialfriendship kindled between Joel and Lou, there's a sign upoutside the bar reserving a space especially for him inperpetuity.

Friday nights main-stage lineup was almost one bigclique.

Vance Gilbert, Don Conoscenti and Ellis Paul have beenclose friends for several years now, and they played theWoody Guthrie Folk Festival this year one after another, inthat order.

"We hardly ever get to play together, or even see eachother for long stretches of time, being out on the road asmuch as we are," Paul said Saturday afternoon.

From the stage Friday night, after inviting Conoscentito join him for a couple of songs (including "3,000 Miles"),Paul said, "I haven't played with Don in about six months.It's a lot like not having sex for six months."

Go ahead, snicker, but these guys really think that muchof each other. Gilbert even performed a song he had writtenyears ago for Paul, a semi-bitter broken-hearted lamentabout Paul's plans to move from their Boston base toNashville. Its an amazing song, "Taking It All to Nashville,"expressing deep love between two (heterosexual) men, and itwas the jewel of Gilbert's set.

"I'm not mad at him anymore," Gilbert said from the stageafter finishing the song. "He moved back to Boston."

Gilbert's performance was amazingly powerful. He dishedthe sass between songs, joking that "LaFave sounded blackerthan I do, like a cross between Bob Dylan and Al Green," buthis songs couldn't be sweeter or more delicatelyconstructed. His voice is like butter, and when he wascalled back for an encore -- not a given occurrence at thisfestival, by any means -- he showcased it by stepping intothe audience, sans microphone, and singing a moving mythcalled "The King of Rome." He is definitely a new member ofthe festival family.

Oddly enough, though, for all the spirit of camaraderieand family, I never heard anyone on stage Saturday night,the festival's climax, wish Woody a happy 89th birthday.That is, after all, the reason this festival occurs in thehottest possible part of the summer; Woody Guthrie was bornon July 14, 1912.

If the festival maintains the strength it enjoyed thisyear (on what organizers thought might be a slow year), hemay be reborn again every July in a pasture west of his oldhometown.

Kevin Bowe and his band, the Okemah Prophets, performedin Okemah for the first time at last year's Woody GuthrieFolk Festival. They lucked out with an indoor cafe showduring the heat of an afternoon, and their Ramblin' JackElliott-meets-the Replacements songs bowled over a crowd ofGuthrie fans, including Guthrie cohort (and last year'sheadliner) Pete Seeger. After the Prophets' fiery set,Seeger even remarked, "That's different, but of course Ilike it."

Kevin Bowe and his band will be back at the WoodyGuthrie Festival this week -- with a high-profile slot on theoutdoor main stage Saturday night -- and Bowe says he's eagerto return. His road to Okemah from his native Minneapolishas been a long and winding one (appropriately for anacolyte of the festival's namesake) and owes its comingfull circle to the magic of the Internet. Last year, one ofthe festival organizers entered "Okemah" into an onlinesearch engine just to see what returns would come up;suddenly he was reading about this Minneapolis-based bandcalled the Okemah Prophets and led by a widely acclaimedsongwriter (who's written for the likes of Jonny Lang, LeoKottke, Peter Case, Chuck Prophet, Delbert McClinton andmore). Two phone calls later, they were booked.

In an interview from his Minnesota home this week, Boweretraced his circuitous route from young punk toGuthrie-influenced songwriter and band leader.

TC: How and when did you discover Woody?KB: Well, I'm 40 years old. My musical coming of age wasin the '70s. Music had gotten so awful by the late '70swith the corporatization of rock. I mean, I first listenedto radio as a young teen, when FM was freeform and had noplaylists. You'd hear Led Zeppelin segue into John Prine.The first record I bought was by Taj Mahal because I'dheard it on the radio and liked it. By the late '70s it wasall Foreigner and Heart, and I felt very disenfranchised bythe shift. So I started listening to older music. Idiscovered country through this weird genealogy: "Exile onMain Street" (by the Rolling Stones) has pedal steel on it,and investigating that I found Gram Parson, and throughthat discovered the Byrds' "Sweetheart of the Rodeo," andthen you get to Hank Williams Sr. and it's all over. Iprobably discovered Woody through Bob Dylan. I mean, I'm aJewish guy from Minnesota -- who else am I going to belistening to, right?

TC: What grabbed you about Woody's music, though?KB: By the time I discovered Woody Guthrie, I was moreof a songwriter than a band guy. I was focused on writingmore than performing. That's what grabbed me about him. Inthe introduction to (Guthrie's novel) "Bound for Glory," PeteSeeger says that any damn fool can write complicated, butit takes a genius to write simple. Also, the humor inWoody's stuff -- that grim humor.

TC:The sense of humor is crucial to understandingWoody. Someone mentioned to me the other day that thereason they don't like the film of "Bound for Glory" is thatDavid Carradine (who played Guthrie) has no sense ofhumor.KB: Sure. I mean, it seems to me like Woody Guthrie washaving a great time. He was pissed about certain things,and rightfully so, but he was all about having a good timewhile bringing down the man, you know? ... I was remindedof Woody a little bit recently when I was watching abio-pic of Abbie Hoffman called "Steal This Movie." I rentedit because I have a song in it, which I just found outabout. Anyway, I'd always regarded Hoffman as a bit of aclown, but this movie's position was that he was into usinghumor to bring down the corrupt forces in government. Thatreminded me of Woody.

TC:Tell me why you wound up primarily a songwriterinstead of a front man.KB: When you pick up a guitar at 13, you don't think, "Mygoal is to make a living writing songs for people youngerand more talented than me." I've been in moderatelysuccessful bands, but when you hit 30 and the people youwent to high school with are becoming really successful,you start to evaluate your strengths. I was sitting theregoing nowhere, playing in a bar one night, and there was aproducer in the audience named David Z (Prince, JonnyLang). He talked to me afterward and said, "Your band is OK,but your songs are really something. Maybe I could use somesometime." Our first project together was placing my song"Riverside" on Jonny Lang's first album. We've worked on alot of projects since, and my career now is flying aroundto work with different artists, writing songs.

TC: I read somewhere that Paul Westerberg wasinstrumental in your turn from performance to writing.KB: For me, it's all about Bob Dylan and PaulWesterberg. I don't know if this goes over well at a folkfestival, but punk rock was a huge thing for me.

TC:Of course, it goes over well. The first year of thefestival Billy Bragg was on stage explaining how Woody wasthe original punk. KB: Well, yeah. You're eithersomeone who gets punk or doesn't, and that's part of myenjoyment of Woody Guthrie. He was more punk than mostpunks. The Replacements -- well, there's never been a betterband, but I don't think Westerberg thinks of himself as apunk. He happened to be an unnaturally gifted songwriter ina punkish band.

TC:Your bio makes a point of mentioning your childhoodin Minnesota, how you were half Irish and half Serbian inthe land of Scandinavian settlers. How did that affect yoursongwriting, and do you think it was anything like being anOkie in California?KB: Oh yeah. Actually, I feel the same way up here thatWoody must have felt in Okemah -- a stranger in a strangeland. We've never fit into the scene up here. When we playhere, we can't get arrested. But when we play in Nashvilleor Austin or Okemah, it's a big deal. We refer to Okemah asour hometown.

TC:And why did you call your Minneapolis band theOkemah Prophets?KB: In Bound for Glory, Woody describes the town lunaticand calls him the Okemah prophet. He's this guy in the townsquare who babbles and dances. I've spent a lifetime onstage doing just that. The prophet doesn't think he'sbabbling, of course, but the people walking by are going,"Yeah, right, there's the prophet." It's the story of mylife, playing in bars. That's why it's nice to get toOkemah where the prophets are now at least listened to.

These online "clips" reproduce a self-selection of my journalism (music etc) during the last 20+ years. It's a lotta stuff, but it only scratches the surface. I do not currently possess the time or resources to digitize the whole body of work. These posts are simply a bunch of pretty great days at the office.